Edit:
Not sure if my timing could have been more amusing with this entry… but the day after I wrote this Microsoft really pulled out all the stops!
http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/01/27/microsoft-brings-business-intelligence-mainstream-enhancements-power-bi/?linkId=11984318
Well, quite a lot. Those crazy kids…
- …Launched a new BI Designer
- …Launched a new BI Dashboard
- …Released a freaky REST API
- …bought a company!
This while they march along with releases of Power Query, Power Map, and even an Office 2013 bug fix release that improves Power Pivot… and Office 2016! Busy little bees.
So, the good news for yours truly is that Microsoft seems pretty serious about this BI stuff. That is convenient because I didn’t really want to go back to writing code for a living. 
Admittedly, I have a bit of a hard time getting super excited about designers and dashboards. I believe it is the Vertipaq engine and Power Pivot’s DAX language that really makes this stack stupid powerful. However, I am super excited to see that if you look carefully, there is something awesome displayed in the designer app. Many to Many Support!
The lack of many to many support in Power Pivot and Analysis Services Tabular… well, it is not something that really keeps me up at night. I just don’t come across it in most businesses, and when I do… it’s not like it is “not supported”. You learn a few patterns in DAX and go about your business. However, to see they are adding “direct” support for it… means they are continuing to invest in the engine. This brings me joy.
Now that last one… I did not see that coming… at all.
I have been reading statistics books lately, and in the back of my head thinking about how to leverage R in some of the work I do… and build some integration with Power Pivot. Maybe, exposing R as an oData feed to be consumed by Power Query or Power Pivot. I dunno, I hadn’t got that far in my thinking. But I also new that there is some serious power in R, and some of the problems it solves… you can’t hope to solve in Power Pivot directly.
So, I am going to caulk up buying Revolution Analytics (the leading provider of R), as… totally surprising and “duh, obvious” at the same time.
I continue to love what Microsoft is bringing to the table for those that want to do self-service BI… I just hope they can build a cohesive strategy, messaging, licensing, availability, etc…
- The streak is alive! – August 10, 2017
- DAX KEEPFILTERS Plus Bonus Complaining! – July 20, 2017
- VAR: The best thing to happen to DAX since CALCULATE() – July 11, 2017
- Review: Analyzing Data with Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel – June 20, 2017
- Power BI Date Table – June 2, 2017
Scott Senkeresty here… Founder and Owner of Tiny Lizard. Yes, I have done some stuff: A Master’s Degree in Computer Science from California Polytechnic State University in beautiful San Luis Obispo, California. Over twelve years developing software for Microsoft, across Office, Windows and Anti-Malware teams… Read More >>
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